Lee Jackson

"Jackson has crafted a droll, enigmatic ride through the 150-year-old phenomenon of Dickens tourism and its relationship with imagination."—James Riding, Times (UK) "Meticulously researched and engaging . . . A delight for urban historians and fans of Dickens's evocative fiction."—PD Smith, The Guardian The intriguing history of Dickens's London, showing how tourists have reimagined and reinvented the Dickensian metropolis for...

In Victorian London, filth was everywhere: horse traffic filled the streets with dung, household rubbish went uncollected, cesspools brimmed with "night soil," graveyards teemed with rotting corpses, and the air itself was choked with smoke. In this intimately visceral book, Dirty Old London, Lee Jackson guides us through the underbelly of the Victorian metropolis, introducing us to the men and...

An energetic and exhilarating account of the Victorian entertainment industry, its extraordinary success and enduring impact The Victorians invented mass entertainment. As the nineteenth century’s growing industrialised class acquired the funds and the free time to pursue leisure activities, their every whim was satisfied by entrepreneurs building new venues for popular amusement. Contrary to their reputation as dour, buttoned-up prudes,...

The intriguing history of Dickens’s London, showing how tourists have reimagined and reinvented the Dickensian metropolis for more than 150 years Tourists have sought out the landmarks, streets, and alleys of Charles Dickens’s London ever since the death of the world-renowned author. Late Victorians and Edwardians were obsessed with tracking down the locations—dubbed “Dickensland”—that famously featured in his novels. But...